Fibre to Yarn

It's such a long time since I posted. I have been busy but didn't find time to post about my activities.
I thought I had posted this entry several days ago but my internet connection must have broken just as it was downloading!!
I have spent a great deal of time dyeing woollen tops, roving, both to use myself and to sell to other spinners and crafters. Knitting certainly has had a revival and members of the Bedfordshire Guild of Weavers Spinners, and Dyers have managed to drum up interest in our crafts, so much so that our membership has doubled in less than two years. (I think this statement is accurate) The result being, I have been able to sell my hand dyed tops to other members as well as at a Ravelry event held in Flitwick Village Hall in August.
The photo below show two spirally wrapped rovings which I acid dyed in similar colour ranges, next to which are the prepared fibres, stripped lengthwise from the roving and a skein of yarn similar to, what I hope will be, the resulting yarn


This photo is of a scarf knit in a Shetland pattern, inspired by an Online Guild WSD workshop, using a yarn prepared in the same way as the one above.
A couple of weeks ago we spent time with our son and girlfriend in Warwick, site seeing and looking for craft supplies. This led to me having an idea for dyed yarn which involved me having a knitting machine to make the process practical time wise.
I had the idea one day. The next day:- I met a potential customer, at local event, she told me that she had a knitting machine to give away a.s.a.p. She is having a hoard clearance. We were asked to go the next day to collect the machine! An omen or not? I am to have lessons from someone who attends the same line dancing group as myself!
Since last posting I have knitted a number of items which I willl post when I have taken photos

Bad manners

As a child I was always taught that it was bad manners to make a noise while eating.
Since raising silkworms I have read many times that during a visit to a silk farm you could actually hear the worms eating. I have never heard this sound, until recently!!
For the last four weeks I have been feeding 140 silkworms which hatched unexpectedly because I didn't get the eggs into the fridge quickly enough after they were laid and shown to be fertile.
When they are first laid the pin head size eggs are white and almost invisible on kitchen paper. Within a couple of days the eggs start to darken - if they are fertile - then they are stored in the fridge, as they are supposed to need a cold period before they will hatch. Mine hatched in double quick time, probably due to the extra hot spell we had a month ago.
I have never reared so many caterpillars at one time, my poor old mulberry trees have lost a lot of leaves, but I started collecting them from the bottom of the branches which needed pruning anyway so the lawn mower could get under.
Last week, each time the caterpillars were fed, I heard the noise written about. I guess 140 mouths chomping on the freshest, crispest mulberry leaves is the difference. Our sons girlfriend likened it to the sound of rice crispies when the milk is poured on.

I love making books

This book was made at about the same time as that in 'Scraps of brown Paper'.
I had bought a notebook with a plastic cover to keep craft notes but the cover annoyed me and the corner broke off so I decided to make it more personnal and good to handle.
I cut and covered a large cardboard envelope to make a new cover for the notebook and then used a 3D card envelope/package that had been used to send me a book.
I brayered ink from a 'rainbow' ink pad onto pieces of brown paper that were to cover the cardboard glued them onto and around the cardboard. I added a card 'pocket' to the inside back of the cover so that the back cover of the notebook could be slotted in. This means that the outside cover, should it wear well, can be used again when the notebook is full.

I decorated the notebook and cover with my favourite wild flower rubber stamps from Graphicus. Today, I added butterflies to the decoration in 'honour' of the butterfly count sponsored by Marks and Spencer. www.bigbutterflycount.com
At the moment only cabbage white butterflies are visiting my garden and other years we have seen peacocks and tortoiseshells. I think that next year I will rear some from Worldwide Butterflies and hope to help increase the population.

I dyed some more wool roving yesterday. This time it was superwash merino and I made an effort to use new colour combinations.
Now, I have to think of interesting, exotic and decriptive names for the colourways with the hope that someone will be enticed into paying money for them!!! Any suggestions?

Feeling proud

Several months ago I agreed to write an item for the Journal of Weaver's Spinners and Dyers about Fibre Reactive Dyeing. (www.thejournalforwsd.org.uk. www.wsd.org.uk)
I have been dyeing silk and other fibre and yarn with these dyes for several years and thought I'd like to share my experience.

When the Summer 2010 issue had been published I was very pleasantly surprised to see a photo of my weaving on the cover. I had sent photos of the process and finished spun and woven items but never dreamed of my work being shown on the cover. My photos were obviously of a better quality than I realised. I often get things out of focus but maybe so do professionals!!! There are also several photos of my finished work inside the magazine.


Most of my clothes are cotton or linen and I don't enjoy wearing synthetic fabrics, woollens irritate my skin, so I only work with wool for someone else.
Yesterday, I decided to dye some woollen fibre with acid dyes, some of which I have had for years. For this I used the microwave as it's too hot to stand over a heat source at the moment and the time taken to fix the dye is shorter.
Next I am searching for some new colour combinations as I so often realise that I have returned to old favourite combinations like purple, blue and green.



Some time ago I posted about a shawl that I was weaving for our younger son's girlfriend to wear to her sister's wedding. I have a photo of them at the wedding but must get a close up of the shawl.
They have bought a lovely thatched cottage and begin moving in this weekend. What an exciting time for them. Perhaps in the not too distant future a shawl for another wedding day will be needed!!!

Scraps of brown paper

I use brown paper to separate the layers when I wind a warp onto my loom. After a time it becomes torn and distressed, waste material as far as a weaver is concerned, but, for a paper crafter a useful resource. The distressed look is good, has charm and character and can be a useful way to recyle 'materials'.
Since childhood I have been interested in making books and now because of my interest in card making using rubber stamps, embossing powder and all manner of colouring mediums, I have started to make spiral bound notebooks, shopping list booklets and all manner of books in which to record my craft notes/processes etc.
The pictures here are one of my latest 'creations'. I love red and I am always very pleased to see fields full of red poppies at this time of year. This inspired my to make the 'Poppy notebook cover'.
The cover is made from recycled boxes, which once held such things as photo paper and printable labels or a book ordered on the web, covered with brown paper and decorated with a rubber stamps on the poppy theme, hitherto unused. The fastening is two recycled leather buttons with a silk twisted cord.



This was designed as a recording/planning book for another weaver who also likes red. Some of the notebook pages are for inspirational sketches, others for weave draft planning and some for project notes. It is removable and can be replaced in the future by a bought shorthand notebook.

In the Mean Time

A new warp for the loom, along with it's weft, can take several days in the planning, preparation, dyeing and spinning. So
I am keeping busy with another project.
Rainbows are loved by everyone it seems and scarves with rainbow coloured warps are no exception. I have trouble keeping one for myself! It's also a great way to use up small amounts of dyed yarn.
Is it BRIGHT or is it bright?

The weft colour I have chosen, for the first of three scarves on this warp, is bright red and it does look a little bright but I do quite like it - cheery.
The next will be woven with a navy and the third.... still to be decided.

Once the loom was threaded I remembered a tip given me by my orriginal weaving tutor, Mike Halsey.
Tension of the warp threads is important to the weaving process. Slack threads can be caught by the shuttle and cause faults in the woven pattern but with 24 or 32 threads in each inch it can be a trial to get them all the same tension.
When the warp is tied to the front apron, there are gaps in the groups of threads and these need to be closed before weaving the 'real' cloth begins. It can take inches of weaving to achieve this unless..... you weave 4 or 5 rows tabby with a thicker thread, without beating them in place.

Once these rows are pushed into place the gaps close and any slack warp threads are shown up. Small discrepencies may need no more attention, especially on a woollen warp, but larger areas can be seen easily and dealt with, as can be seen at the selvedges of this warp.

One thing leads to another

Last weekend I was asked by our son's girlfriend if I could shorten the dress she had bought to wear at her sister's wedding which is about three weeks away. I replied in the affirmative.
When the dress appeared I became rather nervous. Satin, more expensive than I could afford, beautifully made and required all of my dressmaking skills to alter well. Would my sewing machine tension behave? Had I got a fine needle? I have been making clothes since the age of 13. Why was I so worried? could I have forgotten/lost all my dressmaking skills while I have concentrated on weaving?
The photo of the dress on a hanger doesn't do it justice. There is a slit in the back seam and the hem and facing are mitred. Our son thought I'd just fold, turn and stitch but I explained calmly that a good job required more time and they would not be taking away the dress that evening.
After three days I used all my courage, marked the hemline on dress and lining, zigzagged at the cutting line, machined up the lining and created the mitred corner to turn up the dress. The worst thing was cutting away the corner of fabric. What if I'd sewn it wrongly?? I don't like pressing satin because it could watermark, but I was saved this disaster. The last task was to hand sew the hem... what a relief. The job was done.
As I was working at this task, and considered the event it was to worn at and the fact that our weather is not too kind at this time of year, my thoughts turned to the beautiful colour of the satin and the colours I liked to see with this purple, cerise, plum, raspberry and lilac.
Today, I have dyed some silk fibre and yarn in those colours.


There is a breeze and the silk lookes a mess but is drying reasonably quickly. Maybe, I will be able to spin some of it tonight!
The result of these endeavours may be ready sometime next week, along, I hope, with a photo of the dress owner modelling.